hings ought to be kept in
zoological gardens, and not turned loose. Moreover, my tea will be
boiled into spinach."

Nevertheless, the tea, though minus sugar or milk, was grateful enough
and particularly acceptable to the sailor, who entertained Iris with a
disquisition on the many virtues of that marvelous beverage. Curiously
enough, the lifting of the veil upon the man's earlier history made
these two much better friends. With more complete acquaintance there
was far less tendency towards certain passages which, under ordinary
conditions, could be construed as nothing else than downright
flirtation.

They made the pleasing discovery that they could both sing. There was
hardly an opera in vogue that one or other did not know sufficiently
well to be able to recall the chief musical numbers. Iris had a sweet
and sympathetic mezzo-soprano voice, Jenks an excellent baritone, and,
to the secret amazement of the girl, he rendered one or two well-known
Anglo-Indian barrack-room ditties with much humor.

This, then, was the _mise-en-scene_.

Iris, seated in the broken saloon-chair, which the sailor had firmly
wedged into the sand for her accommodation, was attired in a
close-fitting costume selected from the small store of garments so
wisely preserved by Jenks. She wore a pair of clumsy men's boots
several sizes too large for her. Her hair was tied up in a gipsy knot
on the back of her head, and the light of a cheerful log fire danced in
her blue eyes.

Jenks, unshaven and ragged, squatted tailor wise near her. Close at
hand, on two sides, the shaggy walls of rock rose in solemn grandeur.
The neighboring trees, decked now in the sable livery of night, were
dimly outlined against the deep misty blue of sea and sky or wholly
merged in the shadow of the cliffs.

They lost themselves in the peaceful influences of the hour.
Shipwrecked, remote from human land, environed by dangers known or only
conjectured, two solitary beings on a tiny island, thrown haphazard
from the depths of the China Sea, this young couple, after passing
unscathed through perils unknown even to the writers of melodrama,
lifted up their voices in the sheer exuberance of good spirits and
abounding vitality.

The girl was specially attracted by "The Buffalo Battery," a rollicking
lyric known to all Anglo-India from Peshawur to Tuticorin. The air is
the familiar one of the "Hen Convention," and the opening verse runs in
this wise:

I love to hear th